Chapter 37: Vera Alistar

  The three groups of mystics from the silver moon had started their raids. Rouge, Snow, and Specter were already fighting.

  The three of them faced two mystics from Gourmet, one with a red mask with six painted eyes, and the other had a white mask with a teardrop below the left eye.

  The silver moon mystics knew that there was a large risk of fighting mystics of Gourmet. However, they didn’t expect that Gourmet members would be guarding the buildings.

  They expected lackeys, low level mystics that is treated as either servants or a source of food for Gourmet.

  Astral and Zephyr was a group, their building was in the Northwest. Rouge, Snow, and Specter raided a building in the South. While Shade and Ms. Silver raided a building in the Southeast near the docks.

  Rouge and his team weren’t the only ones currently in combat against Gourmet. All the other teams met mystics from Gourmet as well.

  …

  “Mr. Magician. You will have to survive 2 minutes without me. Can you do it?”

  “Ms. Silver, I don’t think I much of a choice. I will try, good luck on your end.”

  Ms. Silver nodded. Then her body disappeared as if she never stood next to Shade to begin with. Shade and Silver only found two members of Gourmet in the building they raided.

  However, one of them was a quasi-saint, a mystic with between 41-49 characteristics. This quasi-saint was accompanied by Bloody Mary. Ms. Silver, a saint, noticed the quasi-saint almost immediately after breaking the spiritual barrier in the building.

  When Ms. Silver disappeared, the quasi-saint disappeared after her. Shade first thought that they used illusions to disappear, but Judgment corrected him… A battle at the saint level is different from what a mystic at your level could even imagine. Those two didn’t use any of their characteristics, they simply moved at top speed.

  Judgement used to use the old names of the mystic ranks. These names come from when there were more than 21 churches fighting for supremacy. Quasi-saints used to be called Demi-Gods.

  And after having witnessed one quasi-saint and one true saint disappear simply by moving at top speed, Shade had just started to understand why they were called demi-gods.

  Shade was left alone with Bloody Mary. She acted extremely careful because of the previous fight. During that fight, Judgement and Magician had taken over Shade’s body and fought her.

  She had already felt that something was off with Shade, she knew that he was like them, Gourmet, but different.

  “If you think that fighting me will be as easy as last time then you are surely mistaken.”

  Shade thought that Bloody Mary tried to act tough, but he was wrong. He felt that something was off with her spirituality. As if it was shifting, changing, morphing into something else.

  He knew that the morphing spirituality within her body was still spirituality, but it felt very different. As if the person in front of him wasn’t the same person that spoke earlier.

  Shade could feel his body shiver. His fear started to stiffen his body unable to move, he saw how the gaze from behind the blood red mask with baby handprints started to change.

  Judgement and Magician started circulating their spirituality. Shade felt shaken but his stiff limbs started to ease up.

  While he felt happy about the fact that he wouldn’t be fighting while his whole body was stiff of fear, he felt that something was off.

  If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

  Shade’s mind started to race as he kept his eyes glued to Bloody Mary… Why hasn’t she attacked yet? Why is she just standing there?

  While Shade readied himself to fight, Judgement spoke… Kid, switch with Magician.

  Shade was about to ask why when suddenly his sight went black. Shade felt a crushing pain to his head as he was tackled to the ground. Without even a chance to groan in pain Shade was thrown out of the window on the third floor.

  By instinct, Shade used his sword to hook himself to the window. After regaining his bearings, Shade shook his head and looked up then down at the street.

  Down on the street stood no one, until a red dressed woman in a ceramic mask suddenly showed up. Shade shivered as he felt that a smile behind the ceramic mask slowly appeared.

  Shade shifted his focus to his inner self, where his subconscious was. There he found two entities, a cold gaze and a nefarious smile. Bloody Mary could feel that a change in her opponent was happening.

  She decided to interrupt him by jumping up three floors, grabbing Shade’s ancle and throw him up towards the roof where he landed with a thud.

  Bloody Mary followed to the roof and looked at her opponent lying there, not moving. She scoffed as she walked toward her opponent.

  “Is this all you got? I remember last time was much more interesting. Why can’t you put up more of a fight? Or am I fighting the wrong one?”

  Bloody Mary kicked Shade’s body, she sent him flying a few steps. He rolled on the ground without making a sound.

  She narrowed her gaze and remembered something important… Didn’t he use illusions?

  She felt a shiver down her spine as she turned around only to find a young man in purple cape with a monocle on his face. His nefarious smile caused Bloody Mary to stagger backwards.

  To her, the young man looked like a quasi-saint, not because of the spirituality surrounding him, no, that was still below her own.

  It was his demeanour, his poise as he walked towards her, and the fact that the spirit world started screaming at her.

  Mary was in half crazed state because of her second personality. All of Gourmet was like that. Just like Magician, her second personality was a blend between herself and the entities she had contracted.

  This meant that she had a greater sense of the spiritual, at times she could feel the changes in the spirit world. However, this was very rare. Even Shade, someone with two saint level characteristics hasn’t developed this ability.

  As if he held her in his hand, as if he expected her to do exactly what she has done.

  She rushed forward and tried to grab at the purple caped mystic’s throat, but her hand simply passed through as the young man’s body faded into nothing.

  She turned her head and saw that the young man had appeared to her right. Bloody Mary tried to punch the young man in his chest this time, but his body disappeared once again.

  Bloody Mary screamed in frustration as she started shouting at herself.

  “Damn it! You switch with me!”

  As if she received an answer not to her liking, Bloody Mary shouted at herself again.

  “Vera, switch with me you bitch!”

  While she continued to shout at herself, the temperature in the surrounding area changed. Bloody Mary shouted in protest to the dropping temperature.

  “Damn it why is it so cold?”

  “Vera?”

  Bloody Mary turned her head and saw the young man in purple still lying on the ground. She thought that he was an illusion made to simply take away some of her attention, but if he was now talking, then he was most likely the main body.

  The man in purple slowly sat up and his nefarious smile took away most of Bloody Mary’s attention. He spoke with a calm and ethereal voice.

  “The full name of the Gourmet in red. The one with a red ceramic mask with baby handprints. The one called Vera.”

  Mr. Magician could hear illusory voices that whispered the name he was searching for. This wasn’t a divination but a simple question to the spirit world.

  Usually, he would need to chant a more specific divination statement, in the form of a question, and chant it three times for the spirit world to even notice him.

  However, he had something that could act as an intermediary, a medium, for the information he gave, and wanted to receive.

  His monocle pendent had not simply a spirit characteristic, but an actual spirit that wanted to reside in it. While it was just barely any different from a normal artifact that had a characteristic, it was like a mini portable spirit world with the related information.

  The spirit world records everything, as long as Mr. Magician worded his question correctly, the spirit within the pendant could simply look up the information.

  Therefore, simply asking it once was enough to receive a response. With a smile, Mr. Magician shouted towards the sky.

  “Ms. Silver! Her name is Vera Alistar!”

  Bloody Mary, or Vera Alistar which was her real name, rushed towards Mr. Magician intended to kill him as fast as possible, but quickly stopped only a few meters away from him.

  Blood started to flow out of her ears, the ceramic mask broke and fell of her face. Her azure eyes were visible but the red liquid that flowed down her cheeks took most of one’s attention.

  She fell down to the roof floor and died on the spot. Shade regained control and thought for himself… This is why one shouldn’t use their real name in the mystical world. Was this a curse or something else?